Watts Street Baptist Church and Creation Care

Our church started an Environmental Mission Group in 2000. We began by addressing this question: “What does the environment have to do with church?” In true Baptist fashion, we asked our congregation to seek the answer. In response, individual members submitted reflections for a Daily Lenten Devotional Guide. The devotions ranged from a study of a particular scripture to a remembrance of a connection with God through an experience in nature. Together, we explored God’s call for us to be in relationship with Creation. 

Throughout the church’s history, this question has been ignored, then answered with a dominion point of view, and more recently, addressed with a stewardship point of view. Our mission group is exploring a call to right relationship with the Earth that extends beyond even stewardship. This call moves us from benevolent dominion to kinship – a recognition of the true interdependence between humans and non-human parts of Creation. Seeking a kinship perspective, the Watts Street Environmental Mission Group has blended congregational opportunities for reflection, for learning, and for action. 

Encouraging our congregation to reflect upon our relationship with Creation, the mission group offered a weekend retreat opportunity in a beautiful natural setting with leaders who had us explore our own “Earth Stories” through discussion, music, worship, and silent reflection. For elementary-aged children, we led “Kids and Nature Connect,” a weekly summer series designed to help children connect with Creation through hikes, planting flowers, experiences with animals, stories, and art. Prayer, reflection, and direct experience with the Creator provide the foundation for further learning and action.

The group has offered several educational opportunities to the congregation at large. This past fall, the focus was “Energy Matters.” We started with a screening of Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” We also viewed the enlightening documentary, “Killowatt Ours.” A representative from a local non-profit talked to us about her group’s efforts to promote solar hot water heaters around town. Finally, we issued a challenge to our congregation called “Our Own Private Kyoto.” Each family is encouraged to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 10%. We handed out refrigerator magnets with specific actions and how much each action reduces carbon dioxide. A giant earth is posted on a bulletin board, covered by a plastic film. For every 100 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a family eliminates, they can cut a square off of the film, revealing a clearer Earth. 

Called to action, the Environmental Mission Group leads the way in “greening” the church, affecting both waste production and energy consumption at church. Our efforts have led to the start of a compost pile to handle scraps from weekly communal suppers, a reduction in plastic waste from church suppers, the installation of energy-efficient bulbs around the church, and other practical measures. Our action extends to contacting decision-makers about important environmental issues in our community and our nation. Action at home and at church seems to follow naturally from heeding the call to right relationship.

Earth Day 2007 is near! “Living with enough” is the theme of our upcoming all-ages-beach retreat over the Earth Day weekend. We will focus on stories throughout the Bible of God’s provision. Relying on God’s plenty conflicts with our culture’s neverending demand for more stuff. However, relying on God’s plenty is a spiritual discipline that can bring us closer to kinship, a right relationship with Creation. So may it be.